Automatic safety-stop.



G. J. MEYER.

AUTOMATIC SAFETY STOP.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 22. 1915.

Patented Apr. .1(), 1917.

. GEORGE J. MEYER, 0E MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN.

' AUTOMATIC SAFETYrSTOP.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Apr. 10, 191?.

Application filed November 22, 1915. SerialNo. 62,705.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known "that I, GEORGE J. MEYER, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Milwaukee, in the county of Milwaukee and State of Wisconsin, have invented new and useful Improvements in Automatic Safety-Stops, of which the following is a description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, which are a part of this specification.

This invention has for its object to provide an automatic means for disconnecting from its'driving means a machine of any character, such as a bottle washing machine or the like, upon the occurrence of a mishap that would be liable to cause injury to the machine, the material operated upon, or to the attendants.

In bottle washing machines in particular necessity exists for stopping the operation of the machine automatically in the event of a bottle with acrown or obstructed neck being fed to the machine, as the obstruction would prevent the cleaning brushes entering the bottle and would cause trouble. Also the machine is required to be stopped automatically upon the breaking of a bottle or upon the failure to remove bottles from the delivery end of the machine, or for various other reasons which would affect the successful operation of the machine It is not only necessary to stop the operation of the machine, but provision should be made against the machine being restarted until the particular cause for stopping it has been ascertained and removed. It is common to provide such machines with stopping mechanism automatically released on such occasions, but the present invention is designed to revent the restarting of the machine until the defect has been removed;

With the above and other objects in view the invention consists in the automatic safety stop as herein claimed and all equivalents.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, in which like characters of reference indicate the same parts in the different views,

Figure 1 is a side view of an automatic safety stop mechanism constructed in. ac-

cordance with this invention;

Fig. 2 is a plan view thereof;

Fig. 3 is a detail sectional view of the re lease dog and the ratchet dog; and,

Fig. 4 is an end-view thereof.

In these drawings 10 indicates a clutch mechanism for connecting and disconnecting the driving means of a machine, and 11 is a suitably mounted lever for operating such clutch mechanism, being shown in full lines in position for engaging the clutch and in dotted lines in position for disengaging'the clutch. A connecting rod 12 connects the lever 11 with the longer arm of a bell crank lever 13 which is pivotally mounted at 14 in a bracket 15. The bell crank lever 13 is provided with a sector-shaped'rack member 16 connecting I the two arms thereof, and stop lugs 17 on the bracket 15 limit the movements of the bell crank lever by the engagement of the shorter arm therewith. At the end of the shorter arm of the bell crank lever is pivotally connected a starting rod 18 which extends to a point of convenient access to the attendant and is surrounded by a coil spring 19 hearing against a collar thereof and against a stationary support, which spring is normally under compression and tends to force the rod 18 and the parts connected therewith from the full line positions thereof to'the dotted line positions, or in other words, tending to disengage the clutch. The parts are brought to their full line po sition for engaging the clutch by pulling upon the rod 18, and are norm-ally held in this position by a dog 20 pivotally mounted on a stud 21 of the bracket 15 engaging a spur tooth 22 at the end of the rack segment 16, as'shown in Fig. 1. A coil spring 23, coiled around the hub of the dog 20, has oneend engaged with a lug of the bracket 15 and the other end engaged with a pin on the dog 20 to give said dog a tendency to move into engagement with the spur tooth 22,while a stopping rod 2 1 connected with the upstanding part of the dog 20 and ex* tending to within easy reach of the attendant constitutes the means for swinging the dog out of engagement with the spur tooth 22. Besides being adapted for hand 22, and a ratchet dog 27 pivotally mounted on the same stud 21 as the dog has a beveled hook on its end to engage the ratchet teeth 26. As seen in Fig. 8, the ratchet dog 27 is also provided with an arm 28 to engage the lower edge of the dog 20 and with a lug .29 containing a recess opposite a recess in the parts of the dog 27 and the parts of the dog 20 to permit of a slight movement or play between them, which is yieldingly resisted by the spring 30.

In operation the parts are normally in the position shown by full lines in Fig. 1, having been so placed at the commencement of operation by the attendant pulling upon the rod 18. Upon the occurrence of some mishap requiring the stopping of the machine, the rod 24 is automatically moved to the left. This springs the dog 20 to the dotted line position thereof, thus releasing its engagement with the spur tooth 22 and permitting spring 19 to throw the lever 13 to its dotted line position and thereby open the clutch to stop the operation 'of the machine. Should the attendant attempt to start the machine again in operation without having discovered and removed the cause for throwing out the clutch he will find it impossible to do so, for when he pulls on the starting rod 18 the bell crank lever 13 will refuse to yield, as the ratchet teeth 26 thereof are engaged by the ratchet dog 27. This condition will continue until the obstruction is removed, permitting the stop rod 24: to be returned to its normal position by hand or by the pressure ofspring 23, so that the dog 20 bears on the smooth portion of the segmental rack 16. In this position of the dog 20 its engagement with the arm 28 holds ratchet dog 27 in its full line position out of engagement with the ratchet teeth 26 so that a pull on the starting rod 18 will be effective for restoring the parts to their .normal operating position where they are held by the reengagement of the spur tooth 22 by the dog 20. In this resetting operation the beveled tooth of the ratchet dog 27 will have passed beyond the ratchet teeth 26 before the dog 20 is swung by riding over the inclined cam surface of the spur tooth 22, and consequently there is no interference with the resetting operation incident to such swinging of the dog 20.

With the safety stop mechanism of this invention the machine is protected against any attempt to start it in operation before removing the obstruction which has caused the clutch to be thrown, and thus accidental or intentional damage is avoided.

It will be observed that the two dogs 20 and 27 constitute in effect an anchor pawl,

the two arms thereof having limited movement with relation to each other, and one of them, the dog 20, in its engagement with the clutch operating lever 13 serving to restrain such clutch'operating lever from movement in the direction in which it is biased by the spring 1.9, while the engagement of the other dog 27 serves to restrain the clutch operating lever against movement in its anti-bias direction.

While a mechanical clutch is the usual form of means for disconnecting a machine from its driving means, it is obvious that in motor driven machinery the driving operation may be rendered ineffective by opening a switch controlling the motor circuit, and in engine driven machinery the same may be accomplished by the closing of a valve controlling the admission of steam or other pressure fluid to the engine, and consequent] y the mechanical clutch illustrated is by way of example, and the term, clutch is intended to include all such various means for discontinuing the driving operation of the machine.

What I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, a dog engaging the clutch operating member for holding it against its tendency to move, a second dog adapted to engage the clutch operating member to restrain its movement in the anti-biased direction and having connection with the first mentioned dog for holding it in its engaging position while the first mentioned dog is in its disengaging position, and automatic tripping means for moving the first mentioned dog out of its engaging position.

2. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, and a suitably operated anchor pawl having one arm adapted to engage the clutch operating member to normally hold it against movement in its bias direction and having the other arm adapted to engage the clutch operating member to hold it against movement in its anti-bias direction.

3. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, and a suitably operated anchor pawl with its arms yielding in relationto each other and alternately engaging the clutch operating member, the engagement of one arm serving to oppose the movement of the clutch operating member in its bias direction and the engagement of the other arm serving to oppose the movement of the clutch operating member in its anti-bias direction.

4. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, a pair of dogs connected together with limited play between them, and

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suitably controlled means for alternately moving the dogs into positions of engage ment with the clutch operating member, the engagement of one of the dogs serving to oppose movement of the clutch operating member in the bias direction and the engagement of the other dog serving to oppose movement of the clutch operating member in the anti-bias direction.

5. an automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a spring actuated clutch operating lever, a dog engaging the lever for holding it against the action of its spring, means for disengaging, the dog, and a second dog having connection with the first mentioned dog and engaging the clutch operating lever to prevent its movement in theopposite direction, the connection between the dogs serving to. Withdraw the second dog from its engaging position when the first mentioned dog is returned to its engaging position.

(3. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a spring actuated clutch operating lever, a segmental rack thereon, a spur tooth on the lever, a spring actuated dog engaging the spur tooth for holding the lever against the action of its spring, suitably controlled means connected with the dog for disengaging it from the spur tooth, a second spring actuated dog for engaging the ratchet teeth to hold the lever against movement in an opposite direction, and an arm on one dog engaging the other dog for preventing both dogs remaining in operative position at the same time.

7. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a clutch operating lever, a segmental rack thereon, a spur tooth on the lever, a spring actuated starting rod connected with the clutch operating lever for moving it to a position for operating the clutch to start the machinery in operation, a spring actuated dog engaging the spur tooth for holding the lever in said position, and a second spring actuated dog for engaging the teeth of the segmental rack for holding the lever against movement in a direction to start the operation of the machinery, means on one of the dogs engaging the other dog to prevent them from both remaining in their engaging positions at the same time, and a suitably operated stopping rod connected with one of the dogs for disengaging the first mentioned dog from the spur tooth.

8. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, means for holding the clutch operating member against movement in its bias direction but capable of being released therefrom to permit the operating member to move, and means for locking the operating member in the position to which it moves.

9. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, an automatically released dog for normally holding the operating member against movement in its bias direction, and

a ratchet for locking the operating member in the position to which it is moved when released by the dog.

10. An automatic safety stop for machinery, comprising a biased clutch operating member, a dog for normally holding the clutch operating member against movement in its bia direction, a ratchet for locking the clutch operating member in the position-- to which it is moved When released by the dog and a common means for releasing the dog and the ratchet. r In testimony whereof, I afiix my signature, in presence of two witnesses.

' GEORGE J. MEYER. Witnesses:

KATHERiNE HOLT, R. S. C. CALDWELL. 

